Topic: Trying to wrap my head around offline/paper wallets. - page 2. (Read 2293 times)
Isn't risky sending money to an address that I can easily mistype because I have to write it on the client manually from the paper?
Be it a computer that is offline (I understand this a bit more, the transfer of files and certificates through USB makes more sense) or a paper wallet, I am really having a hard time understanding how that works.
It would be awesome if someone could do a good job of explaining how they work (especially paper wallets) or could point me in the direction of or make an explanation video on the topic.
It would be awesome if someone could do a good job of explaining how they work (especially paper wallets) or could point me in the direction of or make an explanation video on the topic.
Here's the wiki article on them:
- http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Paper_wallet
Simply, the private key (the "Spend" QR Code on the wallet above) is created using computer code .. javascript, in the case of BitAddress.org:
- http://BitAddress.org
That private key is needed to spend any coins sent to that Bitcoin address (the Load & Verify QR Code on the wallet above) that is derived from that private key.
The computer code that will use that private key to spend needs to do a few things like determine the unspent transactions and choose one or more of them to include in a spend transaction. Blockchain.info will do this with an API call.
Or you can import the private key into the Bitcoin.org client (or into your Blockchain.info/wallet, or any other client like Multibit, Electrum, etc.) and it will be treated just like any other private key in the wallet. Also you can import it into Mt. Gox and they will sweep any unspent funds for that Bitcoin address to your Mt. Gox account.
Be it a computer that is offline (I understand this a bit more, the transfer of files and certificates through USB makes more sense) or a paper wallet, I am really having a hard time understanding how that works.
It would be awesome if someone could do a good job of explaining how they work (especially paper wallets) or could point me in the direction of or make an explanation video on the topic.
It would be awesome if someone could do a good job of explaining how they work (especially paper wallets) or could point me in the direction of or make an explanation video on the topic.
Jump to: